Being Strong and Delicate on Sin

When dealing with the sins of brothers and sisters in Christ, we must be both strong and delicate.

We must be strong on sin.

That is to say that we must be clear on what sin is. This goes two directions:

First, we must understand what particular sins are. Unrepentant sinners typically don’t like for their sins to be called sins. They will be angry. They will consider your recognition of their sins as a sin in and of itself. They will persecute you, if possible, for calling out their sins.

Second, we must understand the nature of sin as part of the nature of fallen man. It’s not enough to point out individual sins, but we must understand that those individual sins are fully seated in the identity of sinners. We must be clear that we are all sinners in this way. The only difference is that those who have faith in Christ are forgiven based on his work on the cross and are subsequently reconciled with God.

But it’s precisely because of this point that we must be clear on what sin is. If we don’t get sin right, we don’t get the gospel right. If we don’t get the gospel right, we fail to convey the truth of it to those who are yet perishing in their sins. Without the truth of the gospel there is no way they can have enough understanding to have faith in Christ. It is precisely recognition of sin that brings recognition of our need for Christ. So we must be clear about sin.

We must be delicate with sin.

Being clear on sin doesn’t mean fully appreciating every little sin we commit. Even in the Law of Moses, sacrifices were offered for the forgiveness of sins that people were not aware of. Paul addressed people who had already come to faith with the revelation of sins they were committing unawares up until that time. As we go through life walking with Christ, spiritual growth necessarily entails learning of sin s we have been committing that we are now able to be discipled about effectively. The Holy Spirit, who guides us through this process, knows when to reveal sins to us in due course of our life as Christian believers.

As we live in community with other believers, and at home with Christian families, we must necessarily bear each other’s sins delicately. That is, if we are to agree with the Holy Spirit, we need to be sensitive to his guidance in pointing out the sins of others lest we reveal a sin before its time. Some obvious sins must be dealt with swiftly. Others must take time and an understanding of how that sin fits in with the development of another. If we are strong in minor sins and swiftly deal with them too early, a Christian who is not mature enough to handle certain sins may become undone or develop a resistance against dealing with sins and become weak in recognizing sin instead of stronger.

More could be said on this, but it is best to stay in prayer for your brothers and sisters in Christ to whom you have been given to live in Christian fellowship that you have guidance from the Holy Spirit to handle sin wisely, with both strength and delicacy, understanding that you should be also undergoing the same growth in other areas.

Hiding Place: Deliverance from Sin or a Prison

Linda

Years ago I was friends with an elderly lady who sang baritone with me in the choir at one of the base chapels at Camp Lejune, NC. Her name was Linda. She died over a decade ago.

Linda’s parents were German musicians who were killed in a train accident just before WWII. Linda spent the next few years in a Catholic school in Berlin during the war. She would take bread to the French prisoners of war.

She invited me to a thanksgiving dinner one year where she had some Austrian friends from the old country coming to visit. The dinner was lovely and I enjoyed the cultural experience. After her friends left, Linda sat down with me and told me of the old days. She told me how she saw the propaganda of the Third Reich and how deeply it influenced her thinking. She also told me how wrong it all was, but how hard she struggled against her indoctrination. She told me how she knew it was wrong to hate Jews, but that she wrestled with her training as a young child to hate them.

She told me other things as well about how brutal some of the Allies were, particularly the Russians. She told me how she came to America and took speech lessons to remove the German accent, How she married and remarried. How evil her second husband was and how he was spending time in Leavenworth prison. Even colonels with spotless records can commit crimes. She told me of her hidden son who lived, yet as little more than a spectre, after a serious automobile accident cause by his use of drugs.

In all of this, she left the Roman Catholic Church and found solace in the gospel of grace. A military wife, she stayed close to the base and the transient families she knew there.

Her story is an echo of many. I’ve been fascinated with how such deceit as what was propagated by the Nazis can affect entire populations of people. Last night I watched a documentary following the children and grandchildren of Hitler’s top men as they fought against the dark legacy of their infamous fathers. It reminds me of the warnings in Exodus where the iniquity of the fathers will be visited on their children and grandchildren. Although their descendents did not commit the crimes of their fathers, they bear the weight of guilt among those who survived their father’s sins.

I’ve also watched Lore recently. It’s a German movie about children of Nazi parents who fled across country to their grandmother’s house when their parents were taken prisoner in the Allies’ invasion of Germany. Many of the reviewers noted that the kids acted like brats. Frankly, they aren’t any worse than the kids Hollywood portrays. It’s odd that we are quick to judge Nazi kids while giving the kids on, say, Home Alone, a pass.

(Note: Being a foreign film, Lore isn’t rated. It should be rated R. There are adult themes and images. Beware if you plan to watch this.)

But I compare this also to the 2009 portrayal of the Diary of Anne Frank. My favorite portrayal was the 1980 version. After watching this one, I see how filtered the 1980 version was. The 2009 version showed a bit more the bratty side of Anne Frank. Are victims less sinful than their murderers?

On the one hand, we would note that a murderer committed a crime. It is no crime to be victimized. However, the nature that rises up to fuel a murderer is shared by all people. We are all products of a fallen world and subject to the dubious information that colors it darkly. It is perhaps more apparent to those with murderous parents, such as the offspring of Himmler, Goering and Goeth. They are more able to recognize the evil in their own hearts because of the astonishing sins of their fathers because of the difficulty in coming to terms with sins they did not commit. For that matter, think of the Jews born in captivity during the exile in Babylon and Persia. They didn’t commit the sins that sent their parents into exile, yet they must bear the burden of those sins.

For others, who have lived in relative peace by parents who are relatively decent people, sin seems to be more of an abstract thing. In this case, fairness becomes the arbiter of sin. It is easy to believe that which is fair is good and that which is unfair is evil. It is easy to arrive at the conclusion that being fair makes one a sinless person.

So it is hard for such people to understand that God is not fair. Jesus, the only truly innocent man, paid the price for the sins of evil people. That’s not fair. It can only be fully understood by people who truly see the depths of their own sin, whether that sin has resulted in action or harbored only in the mist of dark thoughts and desires.

Linda knew the sin she was capable of and fought against it while all around her swarmed the stench and decay of death in the sins of others. Let us not treat slavery to righteousness as a prison when we are hidden from our destruction as Anne Frank and her family was for a time. Let us regard our hideaway in Christ soberly and not despise it. Let us not be brats in the Body of Christ.

5. I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

6. Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.

7. You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah (Psalm 32:5-7, ESV)

What Message Comforts You?

After the big tornado in Oklahoma, John Piper tweeted a scripture passage intended to provide words of comfort for people. It was too long for one tweet so he posted two:

• @JohnPiper: “Your sons and daughters were eating and a great wind struck the house, and it fell upon them, and they are dead.” Job 1:19
•  @JohnPiper: “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.” Job 1:20

Word came back to John Piper that many people were not comforted by this passage. Many people felt that the passage was insensitive. So he deleted the tweets. Tony Reinke of Desiring God, John Piper’s organization, discussed the decision here.

What I observe from this is that the kinds of statements that comfort people are tied to what they believe.

John Piper finds comfort in the sovereignty of God. So do I. When disaster happens and the effects of a fallen world are brought to bear on our lives, we are tempted to despair. What comforts me is the knowledge that God is still in control and knows what he is doing. We often forget that we deserve far worse and that even the disaster that affects us is gracious compared to what we deserve. So we can give thanks in every occasion and glorify God.

But many are not so comforted by this message. The reason is that they believe that we don’t deserve any disaster that befalls us. As such, they believe that such disasters are not warranted and are inherently evil. Therefore, they conclude that a loving God couldn’t possibly cause such evil things to happen. They feel the need to limit God’s sovereignty to protect God from having cause evil to befall his creation.

The Bible is clear that we deserve death, however. The Bible is also clear that God is absolutely sovereign. My comfort is in the truth of this. Comfort aside from what God has revealed  is false comfort. Nevertheless, when calamity befalls and distorts the ability to understand these things, there may be tension between what is believed to be true and is really false and what is really true for those who believe God could not have caused calamity.

So what message could be given to someone? The truth is too bitter to bear for them and a lie is not acceptable in any case. No written or spoken message is possible. Nothing Job’s friends could have said would suffice. The message that is best is the unspoken message of an empathetic closeness: simply to mourn with those who mourn. If we fail to send this message, we lose the right to speak truth later when a person is in a better state of mind.